I had a very interesting afternoon. Things like this only happen to 'other' people.

My husband has been out of work for several months due to an injury, and only just started back a few weeks ago. Consequently we're still playing catch-up with the bills. We were expecting a check to come before the end of the week, and said check appeared in the mail today, for a tidy sum more than we were expecting.

I hustled down to throw the check in the bank and then catch the insurance agent because the car and house insurance payment was due yesterday. I got to their office to be told that we not only were paid up until April 2010, but we had a refund coming.

I stood there dazed, because the monthly premiums are not small, and to be told I could keep that money PLUS be given more... w-o-w.

Our television quit working this last summer, and we had planned to use part of the check we got to buy a new telly. Then I found I needed 2 new tires on the car, so figured the tv would have to wait awhile longer.

Now we can get a tv and tires!

I celebrated by frivolously purchasing a small chocolate malt from the DQ as I left the insurance agency. I'll wheeze like hell tomorrow, but first chocolate malt in over a year? It was worth it!

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( Now for those of you who are interested in seeing me explore fiction writing, this is how today's event would unfold as a chapter, or at least a part of a chapter, in the long piece on which I am working (which is mainly self-indulgent, but who knows)...  )

haikujaguar is selling bookmarks, with a special deal if you buy more than one. Five styles are available. The artwork on them is amazing! And they go for a good cause, too.

The One-Card Draw is drawing to a close (heh, get it, drawing? oh well...)

Thank you to all those who participated. If you missed getting a card pulled, don't worry. I'll be drawing again on the 16th of November, and also today from 2pm EST - 5pm EST miintikwa will be continuing the readings.

Blessings everyone! Thanks for accompanying me on this journey!

Just a quickie between chores to mention that ysabetwordsmith is hosting a poetry fishbowl on shapeshifters today. I'm keen to read what transpires. Pop over and feed the fish!

I've decided to do the one card draws on the 16th of the month. It is too near the end of the month to interfere with the beginning of the month, too near the beginning of the month to interfere with the end of the month, and being born on the 16th day of the month, I may just remember that I have something scheduled.

Therefore the one-card draw will debut on 16 October, which is a Friday (fanfare please!).

I will be using the prototype cards for the deck I am designing for the draw. Some of the meanings and names will be fairly familiar to Tarot aficionados, and some of the meanings will be a bit adroit. It's my deck, I'm allowed to run with it!.

Remember to pimp me to your friends. I've had over nearly 2 decades of reading professionally, I currently work as a professional intuitive, I'm a member of the ATA and I'm TCBA certified as a professional reader.

I'll keep nagging you closer to the time.

I saw a bit of a documentary about TerraCycle on the television last week. This company is awesome. They go garbage diving for what they can use, and make it into something usable, and market it. Tote bags made from empty 'Caprisun' pouches. Perpetual totes made from discarded single use plastic bags. Bird feeders made from water bottles. And much more.

I was amazed at what they were doing. It is both 'green' and very inventive.

My first thought was, "What a great idea!"

My second thought was, "Why didn't I think of that?"

Visit TerraCycle here.

My friend and I were having quite a lively discussion this morning about inventive ways for using things. Whenever I've joined a forum or list that I think is going to be really interesting, I usually find it bombs. For example, I once joined a 'frugal living' type of site, in order to learn how to do things like can my own vegetables or make my own soap. I left just after the week-long discussion on how to reuse 'baggies'. They are probably drying tea bags on their clotheslines by now.

Don't get me wrong. I'm certain finding new ways to reuse old 'baggies' and freezer bags is very helpful. It just wasn't what I was seeking.

The second site I joined wasn't much better. It 'did' have a way of cutting old plastic shopping bags into one long piece so that they could be knit into a clothes peg bag, and that piqued my interest. It piqued my interest until I realized how 'long' it would take me to do this activity. The time exchange wasn't worth it, especially how I had a canvas bag that came free with some books I got from a book club and I could just throw the clothes pegs in there.

The third site wasn't much better. Christmas wreathes made from plastic shopping bags tied onto wire coat hangers that had been bent into a circle. Seed trays made from pressed paper pulp egg cartons. How to reuse a vacuum cleaner bag.

I want to find sites that tell me useful, down home, 'foxfire book' type crafts. I want to learn the sort of things my dad tried to tell me, when I was too young to be interested (he died age 74 when I was in my mid 20's).

I'm very grateful to my first mother-in-law. The marriage turned into a shambles (and I take a lot of that blame myself for being young and irresponsible but that is a whole other topic for a whole other post). My mother-in-law had got married and started to set up home on a farm in the middle of nowhere when rationing books were still being used. She taught me how to look into the cupboard and not see what I needed to buy to make a meal, but rather to make a meal with what I saw in the cupboards. She taught me how to pull down a knitted sweater that had got too worn to wear, and re-knit the good yarn into a waistcoat or gloves. She taught me how to make the best cakes from scratch, how to hand sew buttonholes, and how to darn socks. She taught me how to make jams from the windfall apples and how to pluck a pheasant (something I 'really' don't plan on putting into practice again!). Before I moved back to the US from England I went to visit her and thank her for all that she taught me and all that she tried to teach me, when I was young and awkward and thought I knew it all. I'm so very pleased that I did. When I went to call on her again, when I was in England on vacation 5 years later, I found that she had died. I'm so thankful I made my peace with her, for I know how much we tried each other's patience while I was married to her son.

But I digress.

I've spent a lot of time surfing the Internet and scouring the library, and I have found some decent information, but surely there is an online community somewhere that enjoys sharing laundry soap recipes, and tips on how to get homemade jam to set, and the best way for making a belt for a treadle sewing machine. And I'd like to find this information without having to wade through 1,001 ways to re-use a dish-washing liquid bottle or how to recycle disposable diapers!

Can someone throw me a bone here?